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Some teams roll dice on backup quarterbacks

ENGLEWOOD, Colo. -- Maybe Sage Rosenfels filed his retirement papers a few months too early. Rosenfels spent a decade as a starter and backup quarterback for six different NFL teams. After getting cut by the Minnesota Vikings in 2012, he spent months waiting for a call to fill in for an injured starter. That call never came.

Rosenfels spent a decade as a starter and backup quarterback for six different NFL teams. After getting cut by the Minnesota Vikings in 2012, he spent months waiting for a call to fill in for an injured starter. That call never came.

Opportunity could have arrived this year. Eleven teams have had to to turn to a backup quarterback for at least one start within the first eight weeks of the season. The Chicago Bears and St. Louis Rams, who lost Jay Cutler and Sam Bradford to injuries last weekend, join the hit list that includes the Vikings, Buffalo Bills, Cleveland Browns, Oakland Raiders, Tennessee Titans, Houston Texans, Jacksonville Jaguars, Philadelphia Eagles and Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

Teams aren't as suited to deal with the attrition as they were in the past, Rosenfels said.

"Over the last seven or eight years, it was almost standard that everyone had the three quarterbacks," Rosenfels told USA TODAY Sports. "There was definitely a spot for the guy who can still play and the chance to groom the young guy. But so many teams have gone to just two quarterbacks. It creates a situation where if a guy does get hurt it's like DEFCON 5."

Indeed, few teams have a veteran, homegrown quarterback. It just doesn't happen in this era of free agency. There are teams such as the Dallas Cowboys, who signed former Denver Broncos and Bears starter Kyle Orton to a five-year, $10.5 million contract to back up Tony Romo; and the Indianapolis Colts, who signed longtime starter Matt Hasselbeck to play behind Andrew Luck. And then there are teams such as the Rams, who will start Kellen Clemens this week but had to sign two backups, Austin Davis and Brady Quinn, to get through practice.

"What a lot of teams have done is they've gone the cheaper route, cut costs, and backup quarterback is one of the positions where they could do that," Rosenfels said. "It is an insurance policy, and some teams try to go the cheap route, the Geico route, and some teams go for the platinum plan."

The landscape was different in the 1980s, when Jeff Hostetler spent six-plus years as Phil Simms' understudy with the New York Giants. An injury to Simms in December 1990 gave Hostetler his first real chance to start — and he wound up leading the Giants to a Super Bowl title.

Suddenly, head coach Bill Parcells' mantra of "play within yourself" made sense.

"Don't try to be someone you're not and don't try to do too much. Do what you're supposed to do and rely on the guys surrounding you to do their jobs," Hostetler said. "I knew it was going to be my team, and I knew the guys surrounding me all had a lot of faith in me. I think that's important for teams that have lost their starting guy."

When changing quarterbacks midseason, Rosenfels said, the offensive system and the coaching staff might be as important as the replacement player. Josh McCown in Chicago and Case Keenum in Houston, both playing in West Coast offenses for quarterback-friendly head coaches, might be in the best position to help, Rosenfels said.

"I think that's because there isn't a lot of audibling, not a lot of things the quarterback has to do at the line of scrimmage, from adjustments with the offensive linemen and those sorts of thing; the system sort of takes care of it," Rosenfels said.